The success of the Klamath River Basin Fishery Restoration Program will depend in large measure on the extent to which the Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force can draw upon the good will and relevant authority of all interested parties. The long-range policies of the Klamath Fishery Management Council and the fish management plans of the Basin's Indian tribes will, for example, be recognized and, to the extent practical, embraced in this plan. Because the Task Force welcomes the fullest cooperative involvement of all interested parties, it wishes to make clear that nothing in this plan is intended to affect the jurisdiction or rights of any Indian tribe.
For tens of thousands of years the fish of the Klamath River basin contributed generously to the wealth and sustenance of their human neighbors. As stated by Congress in the Klamath River Basin Act, the fish habitats of the basin have been greatly diminished in extent and value in the past century by the construction of impassable dams and by stream diversions and sand and silt from mining, logging, grazing, road development, and floods.
As the fish resources of the Klamath River Basin dwindled, concern for their welfare commanded an increasing amount of time on community, state, and federal administrative and legislative agendas. In 1984 Congress authorized a comprehensive 10-year Federal-State cooperative fish and wildlife restoration program (Public Law 98-541) for the Trinity River basin, the Klamath's largest tributary, in response to the dramatic decline in salmon and steelhead runs caused by the diversion of that river's flows to the federal Central Valley Project. The same year, the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) completed its "Klamath River Basin Fisheries Resources Plan" (usually referred to as the "CH2M-Hill Plan" after the consulting firm that assisted BIA's planners). And, in 1985, the commercial, recreational, and Indian fishers of the Klamath's salmon, after decades of sharp conflict, reached a harvest management agreement providing for the steady rebuilding of the basin's salmon resources.
Congress heard the public's concern for Klamath River conditions and took special note of the historic accord reached by the fishing groups for sharing the salmon harvest and rebuilding the river's salmon runs. On October 27, 1986 it adopted Public Law 99-552, an act to create a 20-year-long Federal-State cooperative "Klamath River Basin Conservation Area Restoration Program" for the rebuilding of the river's fish resources. The plan presented here is intended to give initial guidance to that long-term Restoration Program.
The Klamath River Basin Act creates a Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force and directs the U.S. Secretary of Interior to cooperate with the Task Force in the creation and implementation of "a 20-year program to restore the anadromous fish populations of the [Klamath River Basin] Area to optimum levels and to maintain such levels." (See Appendix A for the full text of the Klamath Act.) The Act also created the Klamath Fishery Management Council to assist the Secretary, and to coordinate with the Task Force in planning and carrying out the Restoration Program. (The Secretary has assigned responsibility for the Program's day-to-day administration to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Service established a Program headquarters, the Klamath River Fisheries Resource Office, in Yreka in 1987.
The 11-member Klamath Fishery Management Council is to "establish a comprehensive long-term plan and policy, that must be consistent with the goals of the (Restoration) Program, for the management of the in-river and ocean harvesting that affects or may affect Klamath and Trinity River basin anadromous fish populations." The Council is directed to conduct public hearings for the purpose of developing and making recommendations concerning harvesting regulations to the California Fish and Game Commission, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Pacific Fishery Management Council, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council. The Council's recommendations are to be based upon the best scientific information available, are to minimize costs, avoid unnecessary regulation, and shall be designed "to achieve an escapement that preserves and strengthens the viability of the Area's natural anadromous fish populations."
The members of the Council are appointed by the Governor of California (one representative each from the California's salmon fishing industry, the in-river sportfishing community, the offshore recreational fishing industry, and the California Department of Fish and Game), Hoopa Valley Tribal Council (Hoopa Valley Indian Tribe), Secretary of Interior (non-Hoopa Indians of the Area and the Department of Interior), Secretary of Commerce (National Marine Fisheries Service and Pacific Fishery Management Council), and the Governor of Oregon (Oregon's salmon fishing industry and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife).
Since its organization in July 1987 the Klamath Fishery Management Council has conducted a number of public meetings to gather information upon which to base its harvest recommendations and has appointed a team of technical advisors to assist it in organizing and analyzing biological and harvest data. In November 1989 the Council began a focused effort, with planning assistance from the National Marine Fisheries Service, to create its Congressionally mandated "long-term plan and policy" to guide its harvest regulation recommendations.
KLAMATH RIVER BASIN FISHERIES TASK FORCE
The 14-member Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force is directed to assist the Secretary of Interior in creating and implementing the Restoration Program and to coordinate "Federal, State, and local governmental or private anadromous fish restoration projects within the Area." The Program's restoration work is, to the extent practicable, to be performed by "unemployed commercial fishermen, Indians, and other persons whose livelihood depends upon Area fishery resources."
The members of the Task Force are appointed by the Governor of California (salmon fishing industry, in-river sportfishing industry, California Department of Fish and Game), Hoopa Valley Tribal Council (Hoopa Valley Tribe representative), Secretary of Interior (U.S. Interior representative), Secretary of Commerce (National Marine Fisheries Service), Secretary of Agriculture (U.S. Agriculture representative), Governor of Oregon (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife), one member each representing the Boards of Supervisors of the California counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, Siskiyou, and Trinity and one member each representing the Karuk Indian Tribe and Yurok Indian Tribe (the Yurok member is to be appointed by the Secretary of Interior until the tribe is formally organized, after which time that member will be appointed by the new Yurok tribal government).
Since its organization in 1987, the Task Force has, with staff assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game, organized a team of technical advisors (Technical Work Group), solicited restoration project proposals and committed funds from Federal and State sources for two fiscal years extending into 1990. The Technical Work Group, which includes representatives from the several State and Federal fishery, land management, and resource conservation agencies that are active in the Klamath Basin, has inventoried the nearly 700 fish restoration-related projects attempted in the Klamath Basin in the past two to three decades. Available information concerning the location, owner, nature, purpose, and cost of each such project was entered into a computerized database.
The Task Force reviewed the 1985 (CH2M-Hill) Klamath River Basin Fisheries Resource Plan and concluded that there was a need to update both the information in, and the approach taken by the earlier plan. Inasmuch as it had been undertaken before Congress approved the Trinity River Basin Restoration Program, the 1985 plan presented Trinity proposals and priorities together with those for the balance of the Klamath Basin, a mix no longer workable for the separate, although coordinated, programs. Additionally, the 1985 plan assumed substantial restoration efficacy would result from largely structural treatments of fish habitat problems. The Task Force sensed that the problems of restoring the fish resources of the Klamath Basin were more complex than suggested in the 1985 plan and concluded that a major rethinking of the best approach to the Restoration Program was in order.
Because the Fish and Wildlife Service's Klamath River Fishery Resource Office staff is small (see Chapter 7 for staffing information) the Task Force determined it would need outside help to assist in the development of a new long-range plan to guide the 20-year Restoration Program. The firm of William M. Kier Associates, specialists in natural resources planning, management, and policy analysis, was selected in summer, 1989 and the Task Force launched its long-range plan effort immediately.
TABLE 1-1 -- The Klamath Basin. Size of Subbasins (in acres).
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In 1988 the California Legislature adopted, and the Governor signed as an urgency measure, Senate Bill 2261, the "Salmon, Steelhead and Anadromous Fisheries Program Act." The Legislature found that California's anadromous fish resources have declined dramatically statewide within the past four decades, primarily as a result of stream habitat degradation. SB-2261 directs the California Department of Fish and Game to develop a statewide plan and program with the objective of doubling the State's anadromous fish production by the end of the century. (SB-2261 defines "production" as the survival of fish to adulthood as measured by the recreational, commercial, and Indian fishery harvests together with the return of fish to their freshwater spawning grounds.)
SB-2261 finds that California's increasing reliance on hatchery production of salmon and steelhead is "at or near the maximum percentage that it should occupy in the mix of natural and artificial hatchery production" and that the conservation and restoration of the State's anadromous fish resources "must be accomplished primarily through the improvement of stream habitat."
The policy directions of the 1986 Klamath River Basin Act and the 1988 California Anadromous Fisheries Program Act are highly compatible. Where the Klamath Act strives to restore the fish resources of the Basin to "optimal levels" by 2006, the State statute urges that a statewide doubling of these resources be achieved by the end of the century. Both acts recognize that the underlying reason for the decline of the anadromous fish resources has been the loss of habitat to the construction and operation of dams and stream diversions and to adverse land use practices. Both acts clearly state that their purposes are to be accomplished primarily through the restoration and protection of stream habitat and the increase of natural, instream fish production.
It is the position of the Task Force that the Restoration Program not only implements the 1986 Klamath Act but represents, as well, the Klamath River Basin component of the statewide anadromous fish conservation and restoration program contemplated in State Senate Bill 2261.
In approving the Klamath River Basin Act, Congress declared that the region's streams "provide fishery resources necessary for Indian subsistence and ceremonial purposes, ocean commercial harvest, recreational fishing, and the economic health of many local communities." These user groups were the driving force behind Congressional approval of the Klamath River Basin Restoration Program and today they represent active voices on both the Task Force and the Council. Since a good description of these fisheries is provided in the 1985 plan, only a brief summary is offered here. More discussion of the users is also found in Chapter 4 (Population Protection) and Chapter 6 (Education and Communication).
Yurok. Yurok tribal members conduct both subsistence and commercial gill net fisheries in the Klamath River between the Trinity River and the Klamath's mouth at Requa. Most of the Yurok fishing effort occurs in the estuary near Highway 101. These lower Klamath net harvests have ranged from 13,000 salmon in 1985 to 52,000 and 46,000 in 1988 and 1989. The Yuroks began a second, earlier commercial gill net fishery for spring run chinook salmon in 1989 and will pursue this fishery again in 1990.
In 1987, 1988, and 1989 the Yurok commercial fishery harvested an average of 26,000 fall run chinook salmon. These fish represent a direct value to the tribe of $3 million. The total personal income generated by support businesses of the fishery in Humboldt and Del Note counties has not been quantified.
Hoopa Valley. Since passage of the 1988 Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act, Hoopa Valley Tribal members fish exclusively on the Trinity River which flows through their Reservation. The Hoopas' harvest of fall run chinook salmon has ranged from 2,000 to 5,000 since 1985; their take of spring chinook salmon has ranged from 1,000 in 1985 to 4,200 in 1987. Like the Yuroks, the Hoopas take coho salmon, steelhead, and green sturgeon incidentally during their spring and fall chinook salmon gill netting.
Karuk. Members of the Karuk Tribe have fishing privileges in the half mile of Klamath River below Ishi Pishi Falls (just above the mouth of the Salmon River, near the Humboldt-Siskiyou county line). Traditional Karuk fishers use hand-held dip nets to snatch salmon from the turbulent water below the Falls (Figure 1-1). Although Karuks take far fewer salmon than the downstream Indian fishers, their relationship with the river and its fish life is every bit as strong as that of the other two tribes.
Salmon from the Klamath River Basin are taken by commercial trollers (hook-and-line fishermen) in the ocean mainly between Fort Bragg, California and Coos Bay, Oregon. Of the more than 600,000 chinook salmon taken in these waters annually since 1986, more than a third were of Klamath River origin. While these fish represent a direct value to the fishermen of nearly $6 million, their value to the supporting businesses of the fishing ports and to their employees is several times that amount.
Figure 1-2 -- Average annual contributions of
Klamath River fall chinook salmon to the ocean and in-river fisheries and to spawning escapement
(USFWS data).
Recreational fishing occurs in the ocean off the Klamath River and within the Klamath River Basin. The ocean sport fishery catches Klamath River chinook and coho salmon in the same general Fort Bragg to Coos Bay area as does the commercial troll fishery. Access is mainly by charter or party boats and skiffs.
River anglers pursue steelhead, coastal cutthroat trout, shad, and sturgeon in addition to chinook and coho salmon. Anglers harvest the fall chinook mainly along the Yurok Reservation in the lower Klamath where the fish's eating quality is still good and where fishermen from all over join residents in an annual late summer shoulder-to-shoulder and boat-to-boat salmon fishing jubilee. Upriver, one finds the fighting steelhead most popular with anglers, particularly the "half-pounders." The steelhead fishery is probably the Klamath River region's greatest attraction.
The sport fishery's popularity is reflected in the pride of the local communities. The town of Klamath's symbol is the salmon surrounded by a heart, while upriver Happy Camp proudly proclaims "Klamath River -- Steelhead Capitol of the World."
The harvest of chinook salmon by anglers in the river system increased from an average of 4,100 fish between 1978-85, to nearly 17,000 fish for 1986-87, reflecting the threefold increase in the size of the returning spawning runs between those periods (see Figure 1-2).
